〈Skighway〉
“I know it’s been a long day, but this is our last external presenter. Look alive, people!” Chorus rallied them from their chair. “Admittedly, we did save this one for last since we expect it to take a while, but it should be very interesting. Send her in!”
A woman bumbled her way into the room, barely able to see over her armful of charts and schematics. She plopped them all down on the waiting table and then stumbled further up to the presentation marker. “Yes, hello, I am Parkair Tarnet, hopefully soon to be CEO of Skighway if we get enough investment to establish the company.”
“Have you ever planned to go on a long trip, and been like ‘ugh, that’s really far. Going by car or train is going to take forever.’ Well, of course you guys have. Travelling is a main part of your job. Now, this presentation isn’t for you. I know you guys have your hover flying vehicles to get around with—super impressive by the way. You all don’t happen to be planning to release that tech and mass producing vehicles with it for public use in the immediate-to-near future do you?”
She received only confused shrugs and headshakes in response. “Good, good, that would crush both this presentation and my dreams if you were. So obviously, normal people don’t have access to this tech. Flying cars are a long way off for the average consumer. As they should be, cus Cosmos that’d be a nightmare to regulate, and I’m not about to try.”
“Helicopters are what most use now for quick, distanced travel, but they’re not ideal and very expensive. Their top speed is good but not great, not to mention they have a very limited carrying capacity. This would leave skycrafts. They can be much faster, hundreds of lages per hour, and they also scale much more efficiently.”
“As I’m sure we all know, skycrafts are almost exclusively used by the military regardless of the country. People keep saying, ‘oh, personal skycrafts are on the rise. We’ll all have our own in no time.’ They use that as an excuse when they tell me my idea is overreaching and unfeasible.”
“Did you know that there are only 583 skycrafts registered for personal use? This increased by only 46 in the last year. Unless there was a sudden boom, we’re talking centuries before they’d become a regular consumer commodity.”
“That is why I’m proposing a new form of public transportation,” Parkair unfurled a schematic. “This skycraft probably doesn’t look that special here, but it is dozens of times larger than what you’ve probably seen. It can transport a few hundred passengers at a time while only being operated by a small crew of dedicated and well-trained pilots and staff.”
“Assuming no issues with inclement weather, a direct flight flown horizontally across the continent should take three to four hours. Can you imagine it—well I’m sure you all can—but being able to cross the world in only half a day? That would be at least a week any other way. Our new skycrafts can do the trip on a single tank of fuel as well, so there shouldn’t need to be any stops. Not to mention the reduced threat of monsters. Where we’ll be flying, there’s barely any.”
“So, my proposal is to develop facilities, similar to a bus station or ports, all over the world. I call them skydocks, where hundreds of skycrafts will travel back and forth directly. Each facility would be fairly massive, with proper runways for skycrafts to take off and land. They’ll also be able to store skycrafts and perform maintenance on them directly.”
“The land requirement is pretty massive, so they can’t be placed just anywhere—obviously not in any major cities, but they can be put at the outskirts nearby. This would be a major investment, but all the background work has already been done. The blueprints are in place for both the skydocks and upscaled skycrafts, and supply chains have been secured. So the moment I get funded, the moment we can break ground on the first dozen skydocks.”
“Now for the complicated news. Everything I have told you all is factual, and I am still looking for full funding. However, I will openly admit that I have been working with the Central Peace these past few years to get this going. They helped with some of the regulations, as well as granting us permits, operation licenses, and reserving airspace for civilian travel.”
“This work came as a gesture of good faith that I would consider their bid for investment when the time came. Which I have. Here, in writing, I have their investment proposal. All I would need to do is sign it and work could begin tomorrow.”
“However, there was nothing ever in writing that stated I was required to accept their investment. I’m sure many I’ve dealt with would have different assumptions and definitions of good faith, but I have no legal obligation to go with them. If I were to go with another investor at this point, it would be a proverbial spit in the face.”
“So why don’t you want to go with them?” Xard inquired.
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
“Restrictions and developmental flow,” Parkair answered immediately. “The amount of oversight the CP wants to have over the skydocks is monumental. It’d basically be my company in name only. I’d still be the primary driving force for decisions, but the pressure to keep them appeased would be unpalatable.”
“They also want to have the first skydocks built next to every Hub City. While a good choice to have them there eventually, it’s not ideal for the start in my opinion. I want to build the first few to be the most convenient for the people, not the government. This means building skydocks at centers of residential sectors, not tourist spots.”
“Take Domister for example. It’s directly east of Horage, but we’re still talking an insane commute to the nearest Hub City before they could even get on a skycraft. Domister is the second most populated country, but the CP wants to skip over them for now in lieu of their own interests.”
“Prosper will need to get a skydock either way. Even though there’s a lot of tourism, the population density is too severe to leave it neglected. Of the other Hub Cities, Cotagerie would be the only one on my initial list just because of its central location.”
“As for around here, the valley directly east of the Bisomote mountain range would be perfect. Now that may sound like I’m placating to your interests, since it would boost both your operation and the economy of the town. Your clients would be able to travel here much easier, not to mention the expansion it would cause around the area. Okay, totally placating, you caught me.”
“But I’m not lying. It is an ideal space for the skydock—open land, far enough away that the noise won’t bother anyone but still surrounded in all directions by major cities. There’d still be a slight commute for most, but it’d be far more viable than any of those cities individually. Unfortunately, given your divisive relationship with the Central Peace, it’d likely be decades before one was allowed to be built here on their terms.”
“So, just to get this straight,” Phon interjected. “You’re well aware of the tensions this would cause between the Central Peace. It’d make a huge rift in your relations, and you may never be able to work with them again after what’s more or less a straight betrayal. And you want to work with us, not only because of our wealth, but because you want a partner who wouldn’t be afraid of pissing off the CP.”
“A bit crude, but yes, exactly,” Parkair didn’t deny.
“Well, that’s good enough reason for me, mawhg em!” Phon cast her vote.
“Okay, okay, I do have one question though,” Kada seemed antsy about it. “How bad of a noise are we talking here. When we had the CP dropping bombs on us, having a skycraft as a wakeup call in the mornings sucked ass. If there’s gonna be a bunch of them buzzing around all hours of the day, won’t people go insane?”
“Well, when they’re in the air, they’ll be flying so high they’ll be almost inaudible,” Parkair explained. “Certainly not when someone is in their own home. Most of the noise would come from takeoff and landing which is why we’d try to have skydocks away from the immediate vicinity of residential areas. Bisomote in particular has a pretty great natural sound barrier with the mountains, but for other areas we would put up sound barriers around the perimeter. They’re not perfect, but adequate enough.”
“Hmm, we should get Nathym to provide you with some additional sound dampening tech,” Kada suggested. “I get that we’re not supposed to be helping these businesses besides money, but it’s in our own interests to not have our life and own business interrupted by them.” She received no objection from the others. “Oh, and Yes, by the way.”
“How is security looking for this?” Xard’s inquiries were a bit more serious. “Being in confined quarters high in the sky for an extended period of time… Honestly, you just can’t trust everyone to behave appropriately, follow the rules, or not be a danger to others.”
“Yes, of course we have taken this into account,” Parkair assured him. “I have the full security proposal here if you’d like to read it, but the gist is that all passengers will be screened prior to boarding, and any dangerous items must be confined to storage during flight.”
“In the beginning, we plan to have a trained security officer on each flight to deal with any surprise cases, but we’ll see how it goes after people get more used to the system. I also plan to have the rest of the staff members trained on de-escalation tactics and emergency restraints should the need arise.”
“Alright, I would like to read that proposal, but it’s a Yes from me,” Xard sealed the funding.
Everyone turned expectantly to Drim afterwards, since he had been the only one yet to give a decision. “I don’t know what you’re all expecting from me,” he addressed the pointed eyes. “Majority has already ruled it funded, so nothing I could do about it at this point either way.”
“That said, it is a pretty great idea, and I’m glad we can help you. This is the kind of thing I hoped to see when we set up this whole investment thing. However, I don’t think the building process will go as smoothly as you’re expecting. The logistics alone sound like a nightmare.”
“But maybe we can help ease some of the roadblocks with a bit more funding. I still have two of these token things I never used, so I’ll use both on this one.” He held up the two tokens between his fingers. “I guess that’s against the rules of… I guess you could say this is a competition? But… mawhg it, I’m the boss and can do what I want.”
“I’ll go ahead and throw in my last token too,” Xard tacked on.
“Same,” Phon once again literally chucked hers.
“Damn it, I used all of mine,” Kada was sad she couldn’t join in. “I knew I shouldn’t have gone in on those self-weaving baskets.”
《Inconceivably Funded - I Guess We’re Just Giving Them Whatever They Need At This Point》